The NSA has installed surveillance equipment at dozens of points along the internet backbone, allowing the government to copy and search the contents of vast quantities of internet traffic as it flows past. If you email friends abroad, chat with family members overseas, or browse websites hosted outside of the United States, the NSA has almost certainly searched the contents of your communications -- and it has done so without a warrant.

The government claims that Upstream surveillance is authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But, that law only permits the NSA to engage in warrantless surveillance of Americans when they are communicating with "targets" abroad. Now, targets are every foreigner, such as journalists, lawyers, and human rights researchers. No judge signs off on the government's individual targets. The NSA secretly vacuums up millions of communications under a single court order each year. (Ashley Gorski) Read more

On the third leg of his "Thank You" tour Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, Trump defended his selection of millionaires and billionaires to join his administration, likening his picks to rich athletes.

"I want people that made a fortune because now they're negotiating with you. It's not different than a great baseball payer or a great golfer," Trump said.

Trump's picks are particularly interesting as he vowed during his campaign to "drain the swamp" of Washington insiders and lobbyists in Washington DC who he claimed profited at the expense of hardworking Americans. Read more

Since Donald Trump's surprise election one month ago, there's been a bubbling conversation about the mammoth conflicts of interest he will have if he is running or even owning his far flung business enterprises while serving as the head of state. I've suggested that the whole notion of 'conflicts of interest' doesn't really capture what we're dealing with here, which is really a pretty open effort to leverage the presidency to expand his family business. But a couple things came together for me today which make me think we've all missed the real issue.

Maybe he can't divest because he's too underwater to do so or more likely he's too dependent on current and expanding cash flow to divest or even turn the reins over to someone else. Read more

A private jet which crashed, killing three members of Osama bin Laden's family, landed too far down the runway because it was travelling 40% faster than the recommended speed, accident investigators concluded. Read more

A federal lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in Colorado by two of the state's presidential electors that seeks to challenge a state law requiring them to cast votes at the Electoral College for the winner of statewide presidential election popular vote.

This is the latest effort of electors attempting to use their Electoral College votes to prevent Donald Trump from reaching the White House.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two Democratic electors from Colorado, Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich.

For all of his focus on industrial workers in the Rust Belt and his dire warnings about America's inner cities, President-elect Donald Trump hasn't had much to say about his plans for those in the deepest levels of poverty -- including America's homeless. And that -- along with his recent choice of Ben Carson as Housing and Urban Development secretary -- is making advocates across the country worried.

Whether it's a smooth plane or an untouched forest, most American women and men have at least considered grooming their pubic hair at some point. But the decision is a personal one, and for many people, science couldn't have less to do with it. Yet a new study could make you reconsider how and even if you groom, Agata Blaszczak-Boxe reports for LiveScience.

Researchers surveyed 7,580 people, asking about their grooming habits and sexual and health histories. The results of the study, published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, suggest a correlation between pubic grooming and sexually transmitted infections in both men and women.

WASHINGTON -- Edgar M. Welch, 28, of Salisbury, N.C., was arrested Sunday after firing a gun inside a pizza restaurant in Washington as he investigated false claims in online articles that the pizzeria was at the center of a child sex slave ring, the police said. No one was injured by the gunfire, and Mr. Welch surrendered peacefully. The pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, had been swept into a conspiracy theory, which linked the supposed ring to Hillary Clinton, because its owner had corresponded with the Clinton campaign about a fund-raising dinner. Read more

During July and August 2016, the LaserSnake (integrated snake-arm robot and laser cutting technologies) system successfully completed a world first, active deployment in a cell in the First Generation Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield  size reducing a dissolver vessel.

Deployed by OC Robotics and TWI in conjunction with Sellafield, LaserSnake proved itself to be a versatile system for in-situ nuclear decommissioning tasks. Read more

A WESTERN Australian schoolboy sent home for sporting "a boy's haircut" has earned an army of supporters after his defensive mother vented her outrage on talkback radio.

According to his mother Sandra Fedele, Year 10 student Jake had gone to class on Monday to collect his exam results as required, but was promptly sent home because his hair had allegedly been cut too short. Read more

Trump is promoting conspiracy theories and singling out citizens who displease him.

We in the media are sometimes told not to write stories about Donald Trump's latest Twitter tantrum, and that's often good advice. But the latest one shows something incredibly troubling, and which is likely to be an ongoing feature of his presidency. We've long known that Trump is so petty and insecure that he can't stop himself from lashing out at anyone who criticizes him.

But now we have to seriously ask how long it's going to be before his vindictiveness gets somebody killed.

Next week, the American Geophysical Union will hold its annual conference in San Francisco. The A.G.U. meeting is one of the world's première scientific gatherings -- last fall, some twenty-four thousand experts in fields ranging from astronomy to volcanology attended.

This year, in addition to the usual papers and journals, a new publication will be available to participants. It's called "Handling Political Harassment and Legal Intimidation: A Pocket Guide for Scientists."

The guide is the creation of a group called the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. One of the group's founders, Joshua Wolfe, and its executive director, Lauren Kurtz, made the decision to write it on the day after the election. "There is a lot of fear among scientists that they will become targets of people who are interested in science as politics, rather than progress," Wolfe told me in an e-mail. Read more

The man who's helmed Hardee's and Carl's Jr. could become the nation's top workplace watchdog. Best of luck, Fight for $15.

In a rebuke to President Barack Obama's work on the labor front, President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday is expected to choose a fast-food executive to be the nation's next labor secretary, tasked with enforcing workplace safety and wage laws on behalf of U.S. workers.

Andrew Puzder, who advised Trump during his presidential campaign, is the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which includes the burger chains Hardee's and Carl's Jr. among its brands. He's largely credited with turning around Hardee's after taking over the company in 1997.

The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported the Puzder pick on Thursday, citing anonymous transition officials. Read more

President-elect Trump has spent the month since his election victory engaging in some distinctly presidential-style behavior, including engaging with businesses on behalf of the American people, conducting a bit of foreign policy, and delivering sweeping public addresses -- all before he holds the authority of the presidency. Read more